So The Times tells us that Kyle has changed his residence to Nassau in the Bahamas for tax purposes.....

Hmm....

Oakland2002 wrote:

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But to be fair does he spend more than 30 days a year in the U.K.?

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Whether or not he does is probably not the point of it being raised. I have little doubt that it's all legal.

Not right morally, but if Kyle is hardly in the UK then why not base himself in a warm weather country.
no income tax in Bahamas, 3.9% social security tax.

Lots of other UK sportsmen and business people do it - mainly in Switzerland or Monaco

Is he still eligible for DC

indiana wrote:

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Hope he is spending next year much more counting his increasing ranking points than how many days he is in the UK.

"Not right morally ...  why not ... " ?  -  Hmm, maybe there's a reason there.

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 To be raised in a country, receive help along the way which contributes to your success, but then to pay your tax to another country because its cheaper would qualify as a "moral" issue by most people I would have thought?

This is very challenging ground, I dont think Kyle has benefitted enormously from the British Tax payer. As a potential British Tennis star and role model he will undoubtedly contribute more to the British Tennis industry than he takes. If keeping our sports stars resident in the U.K. is important to government then taxation has to be appropriate perhaps around generous pension schemes .. the reality is he does very little of his business here and what he does he will be taxed on.

Personally I have more problems morally with people who buy head tennis equipment because of their unequivocal support for an athlete who had used a performance enhancing drug allegedly for an ailment for which it is not prescribed in her country of residence.

I also morally have a problem with youngsters who took enormous amount of support from British Tennis and then didnt give it their best by not getting into the best shape they could physically and mentally. Kyle continues to strive to do both.

Dont get me wrong I think it is fantastic that Jamie, Andy etc.. choose to live here, there are many great things about living in the U.K. it obviously suits them given the stage of life they are at. I would not live anywhere else, Ive tried but culturally given my interests its my choice and its worth every penny of tax I pay.

I would not judge others for making different choices as to where they live particularly when arguably its sub optimal to be as good as they can be at their job and lets reflect on some of the comments over the last 6 months; ultimately that is how almost everybody on this forum will judge them. 

-- Edited by Oakland2002 on Saturday 9th of December 2017 11:28:14 AM

I'm with Indiana on this - and I have been quite a considerable fan of Kyle Edmund, whom I admire as a dedicated and hard-working player. Moving residency to tax havens solely for tax purposes is a moral issue (some people come from tax havens initially or move to them for work, family reasons, etc, in which case there clearly isn't a moral issue ... all the best to Scott Clayton, Roger Federer, Heather Watson, and Stan Wawrinka!) So unless Mr Edmund has a Bahamian girlfriend (I have no idea whether he does or not) and even allowing for the fact that athletes are in an unusual situation in that they have to make the most of a relatively few years of high earnings, it feels very much open to question.

It's not for me about whether there was LTA funding or not, though I think there was quite a bit. When you live in a country, you enjoy its services: roads, healthcare, police, etc and share in those with the other residents. There may be issues with the services. You may not like the way in which resources are allocated. In which case, you can vote for people who would allocate them differently. But if everyone pulled out of paying taxes, there would be no services, and the social compact between citizens and government would collapse. And I don't think you can argue that someone's a role model if that is what they are modelling, however good their tennis may be or however good their sportsmanship on the court.